Faithful God (Part One): Marriage Material

Transcript

JROT 1
09/25/2022
Faithful God (Part One): Marriage Material
Hosea 1:1-2
Jesse Randolph

Well, it’s a time-tested truism of life here on earth, that it’s the people that we love the most who can hurt us the most. I think you know what I mean. There’s this sliding-scale correlation between the love we have toward others, and the hurt they are able to and do cause us. The bad driver who rudely cuts into your lane on 84th Street, sideswipes your car, causes you one type of hurt. The coworker who no longer invites you to lunch, causes you another type of hurt. The neighbor (maybe this is a California thing) who closes their garage as soon as they see you turn around the corner, causes you another type of hurt. The friend who talks behind your back, causes you another type of hurt. The girl who refuses your invite to prom, causes you another type of hurt. The boy who never calls you back, causes you another type of hurt. The toddler who disobeys, causes you another type of hurt. The teenager who disrespects, causes you another type of hurt. The adult child who no longer calls, causes you another type of hurt. The husband who gets caught looking at pornography, causes another type of hurt. The wife who, after 35 years of marriage, says, “I don’t love you anymore and I’m going to go sleep in a different bedroom”, causes another type of hurt.

Again, there’s a direct relationship between the depths of love we have, and the depths of hurt we can experience. So it is with God and His people. No one loves His people more than God. And no one causes hurt to God more than His people. When we disregard Him. When we disobey Him. When we doubt Him. And yet, He still loves His people. He’s still unwavering in His promises to His people. And yet, He remains faithful. To borrow from 2 Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful.” That’s exactly what we see in the Old Testament book of Hosea. The book that we’re going to be studying on Sunday evenings over the next few months.

G. Campbell Morgan, who was Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ predecessor at Westminster Chapel, once preached through Hosea, and he said this: “No one can read the story of Hosea without realizing the agony of [God’s] heart. Then, lift the human to the level of the infinite, and know this, that sin wounds the heart of God. I believe that the meaning of David when in his great penitential Psalm” that’s 51, “he said, ‘Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned’. . .Had he not sinned against Bathsheba? No, he sinned with Bathsheba. His sin against Uriah, too, was in the last analysis sin against God. His sin was of that nature that caused pain to the heart of God. . .” Morgan continues: “There was a theologian in England some years ago who wrote a book of which the title was, “The Impassive God,” in which he sought to prove that God is incapable of real suffering. Well, that God is not my God. That is not the God revealed here”, says Morgan “[in Hosea].” Morgan is right. In the book of Hosea, we see an unfaithful people, namely, the people of Israel. And we see a betrayed and spurned God. But we also see, notwithstanding Israel’s unfaithfulness, the faithfulness of God being magnified and on display.

Now, tonight, we’re just going to dip our toes into the water of the book of Hosea, as we work our way through the first few verses. And on the front end of tonight’s message, kind of like we did in James message this morning, we’re going to need to work through some of the background, as we set the stage for this book and for this series as a whole.

Let’s start with the time frame. We’re going to get into more of the details and the specifics of the dating of this book later in the message. But for now, I want you to be able to place Hosea on the timeline of biblical history. When the prophet Hosea received, as it says in verse 1, “the word of the Lord.” And when he wrote down, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the words that we now know as the book of Hosea, when was that? Well, we know it occurred sometime in the mid 8th century B.C. Meaning, Hosea prophesied and wrote some 750 years before the birth of our Lord.

And the book of Hosea was, like each of the books of the Old Testament, and each of the books of the New Testament, written to a specific group of people. At a specific time. In a specific point in history. And in a specific context. Now to set the stage for the situation into which Hosea was writing, we need to go back in time. Like, way, way back in time. If you’re a notetaker this evening, the first heading for this evening’s message is this, “God and His People.”

As we set the stage for Hosea, we’re going to start in the very beginning, like “In the beginning.” Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That was several thousand, not millions or billions of years ago. I’ll have that conversation with you, out there [in the lobby] if you want to have it later. God made the world and everything in it. He created the world perfectly. He did so in six, literal 24-hour periods. He created the sun, the moon, and the start. He created the earth and the seas. He created the plants and vegetation. He created the animals on land, and animals in the sea, and animals in the sky. And then, as the crown of His creation, He created man, Genesis 1:26 says in His own image. And he created them, man, “male and female… in His own image,” Genesis 1:27. And then, Genesis 1:31 says that “God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good.”

God did His part. Man, however, did not. Man disobeyed. Man did the one thing God told Him not to do. Man sinned. And as a result, sin entered into the world. Romans 5:12 – “through one man sin entered into the world.” Which brought about a curse on the world. It brought about humanity coming under God’s judgment. That sin culminated in a Flood during Noah’s day. But once the waters of that Flood receded and the ground dried, the world began to repopulate. We see the Tower of Babel episode in Genesis 11. And we see the people of the earth gathering in one place to make a name for themselves. God scatters them. And then, in Genesis 12, we see Abram, later Abraham, being called to be the father of many nations. Abraham has Isaac. Isaac had Jacob. And Jacob, later called Israel, had twelve sons, which ended up being the twelve tribes of Israel.

Now following the lead of Joseph, Israel ends up in Egypt for 400 years. And they go from being favored initially, to being oppressed. Pharaoh turns on them and enslaves them, and Moses eventually leads them out of their Egyptian captivity. Under Moses’ successor, Joshua, the people finally enter the land, the promised land, the land of Canaan. Where they were first ruled by judges, but later by kings. The greatest of whom was David, who despite his obvious flaws, scripture says was a man after God’s own heart. David’s son, Solomon, succeeded him. And though Solomon was the wisest man, outside of Christ, that the world has ever known, he was still deeply human and deeply flawed. And his wisdom was eventually overridden by his love for women and wealth and the world’s philosophy. Solomon started off strong, but eventually the cracks of compromise seeped through. Which we see him lamenting now as an old man in the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon was eventually succeeded by his son Rehoboam. But Rehoboam was opposed by his brother Jeroboam, and then the twelve tribes of Israel split. The once unified monarchy became a divided kingdom. With ten tribes in the north, Israel (or Ephraim), led by Jeroboam. And then two tribes in the south, led by Rehoboam. And much of the history of the northern kingdom was marked by bloodshed, as one king after another, in addition to their religious apostasy, murdered off other kings, in order to take the previous kings’ throne. And this again, was all while the people were engrossed in the worship of false idols.

Now, that’s all back story. And by the time we get to Hosea’s day, in the mid-8th century B.C., so think 750, or there abouts, the kingdom was still divided. But life, if you were a kingdom citizen, a northern kingdom citizen, at that time would have in some ways improved. Because the northern kingdom was now in its season of relative political peace and economic prosperity. However, this was very much a time that was still marked by spiritual idolatry. False worship practices still dominated the religious landscape. The economic prosperity of the land, coupled with the peoples’ religious complacency and compromise, actually was a deadly mix. They were comfortable and prosperous. They were fat and happy. They were spiritually wayward and spiritually adulterous. And looming in the north was this burgeoning empire called Assyria which was growing in power. Which was threatening to invade and take these ten northern, wayward tribes captive.

But for the northern kingdom, these ten tribes in the north, the biggest problem they faced, was actually not the rising political and military power of Assyria. The biggest problem they faced, was actually a looming threat of judgment from God. Whose law that they knew but ignored. Whose statutes they had been given but disregarded. God had been very clear to His people, going all the way back to His giving of the Law at Sinai, what would happen if they disobeyed Him. And specifically, if they served and went after other gods. Namely, God had promised to judge and bring curses upon His people, if they disobeyed Him by violating His Law, and pursuing other gods.

You can jot down Deuteronomy 28:15, which says, “But it shall come about”, this is the Lord speaking there, “if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.” And if you were to look at Deuteronomy 28 (we don’t have time to do it tonight, you can do it later this week) you would see there are all these curses. And some of those curses have to do with the tribes being taken into captivity at a later date. And this is exactly where Israel now found itself, in the days of Hosea. God, the perfect and faithful and covenant-keeping God, had been faithful. But Israel had bee disobedient and faithless. At this stage of their history, they had completely tuned God out. They weren’t listening to Him anymore. They’d gone their own way. And they were about to pay the price. And it’s into that context that God gives a word to His prophet, Hosea.

Now, that’s a little of the historical setting of the book. And because we’re in this introductory sermon, kind of like James this morning, I do think it would be a good idea, as we buckle up and get ready for the next few weeks, to lay out some of the preliminaries about the book of Hosea itself. Just to give you sort of a lay of the land, of the book, the theme, the context, that sort of thing. Now, there are many things that could be said about the book of Hosea. I’m going to limit my comments to just a few.

First, the book of Hosea is one of the Minor Prophets. There are 17 prophetic books in the Old Testament. And Hosea’s is the first listed of what are known as the 12 Minor Prophets. And minor here refers to the brevity of the prophecies, compared to the length of the works of the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The term minor does not mean lesser, or less significant, or less important. Minor just means shorter. The Jewish people back in these days referred to the Minor Prophets simply as “the Twelve.” And it was Jerome, in his translation of the bible into the Latin Vulgate around 400 A.D., who first referred to the Twelve as “the Minor Prophets.” So, Hosea is a “Minor Prophet”, but not minor in the sense of insignificant, more minor in the sense of brief.

Second, the book of Hosea, the language of the book of Hosea, is notoriously challenging. I won’t take a show of hands, but I’m sure if some of you have read this book and tried to work your way through this book, you know what I’m talking about. The Hebrew grammar and syntax of this book is complex and difficult. So, pray for me, as you think about me during the week, in my preparation for these messages. But even as you read it in English, you’ll notice how this book crisscrosses back and forth between poetic and prophetic and historical forms of expression. So, as we’re working through it, we really need to be paying attention to the setting and the scene and the style of what’s been written.

The book is also very heavy in its usage of illustrative language. Kind of like what I said about James this morning. Hosea uses many different similes and metaphors. He uses more word play than just about any other prophet. His chapters brim with these vivid similes and metaphors. For instance, I’ll just rattle off a few examples here. We’ll get to these as we go through our study. Israel is described in this book as an unfaithful wife, Hosea 1:2-9. Israel is called a disappearing morning cloud, Hosea 6:4. Israel is also called a hot oven, Hosea 7:4-7. A silly dove, 7:11. A faulty bow, Hosea 7:16. A wild donkey, Hosea 8:9, and chaff, Hosea 13:3. Those are just some of the descriptions of Israel, in that colorful metaphorical language. God is described in this book as a jealous husband, Hosea 2. A frustrated shepherd, Hosea 4:16. A destructive moth, Hosea 5:12. A ferocious lion, Hosea 5:14. A trapper, 7:12. A leopard, 13:7. And a she-bear, 13:8. God’s coming judgment is given metaphorical expression, and it’s compared to reaping the whirlwind in Hosea 8:7. The carrying away of debris on the water, Hosea 10:7, and the yoking of an unbroken heifer in Hosea 10:11. The most pervasive picture though, and one we’ll be getting into a little bit today, is that of God being a faithful husband, and His people being an unfaithful wife.

And that really ties into the third major observation I want to make here on the front end, the theme of the book of Hosea is God’s faithfulness to unfaithful Israel. Hence the title of our series, “Faithful God.” This book is all about God’s steadfast, covenant love. His “hesed” love, for the people that He’d set His love upon, all the way back in Deuteronomy 7:7-8. Even though they had forsaken Him. Even though they had gone after other gods. Even though they were unfaithful to Him. Even though they had committed spiritual adultery instead of honoring and worshiping the God who loved them. Even though they had turned their back on Him. Even though they had run to worship other gods and given their affections to other gods, God was still faithful. And God is and was a faithful covenant-keeping God. His loving kindness, His “hesed,” is seen throughout the book of Hosea.

And His covenant love for His people is, and always has been, unconditional. We see that coming off the page here, but that’s a truth of scripture throughout. That the love that God has for His people is unconditional. There are generally two approaches to understanding the love of God. One approach is to view the love of God as conditional, and one approach is to view the love of God as unconditional. And these two views represent two very different theological viewpoints.

The first viewpoint says that the love of God is conditional upon the human response through so-called free will. And according to this view, the love of God begins with us, and our own self-movement toward God. It’s not induced by the Holy Spirit. It’s not brought about by God. Instead, it’s brought about in the heart of the individual response through their exercise of what they believe is free will. That’s the popular evangelical view today, by the way. And by all accounts, it’s the majority view, sadly, of most churches and church-attenders, and I would even say, as we survey the nation, pastors. Now, in earlier generations, that was not the popular view, the one I just articulated. In fact, the view I just articulated, would not only have been the popular view in previous generations, it would have been considered heretical! The times have certainly changed, and for the worse.

The second view of the love of God, observes that the love of God is unconditional. That is, an individual loves God only because of God. An individual loves God only because of God’s work in their hearts. That view looks to Ephesians 1:5, which identifies and recognizes that God works in our hearts according to “the kind intention of His will.” In other words, God has, on account of His own pleasure and sovereignty, seen fit to work in our hearts to bring us to Himself. The Lord Jesus said this so plainly in John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” Now, we do respond to the gospel. We have responded to the gospel, if we’re Christians here tonight, as a decision of the will, but it’s a response that’s provoked by the grace of God. To say it even more simply and to quote 1 John 4:19 – “We love, because He first loved us.” It’s not, we love Him because we first loved Him. No, its we love because He first loved us.

And we’re going to see that principle, by the way, of God’s unconditional love, coming out very clearly in the book of Hosea. And it’s going to counterbalance the threats of judgment that we also see throughout this book. In other words, while this book certainly has shades of impending judgment on this apostate nation, it even more loudly proclaims God’s unfailing, unconditional love for His people. And in doing so, it offers this hope of renewal through repentance of this people. And we’re going to see throughout this book, this eventual reconciliation between God and His people is intimated.

We’ve looked at some of the literary features of Hosea and sort of the main theme, the main idea, God’s faithfulness in Hosea. Now, let’s look at a bit of the structure in Hosea. Structurally, most interpreters break this book into two major parts, Chapters 1-3 and Chapters 4-14, which I think is right. The first three chapters portray this real-life drama that’s unfolding in the life of Hosea. This is that personal, biographical section of the book. It’s the story, as we’re going to see, of his marriage to, of all people, a prostitute. And then, the next eleven chapters represent an application of Hosea’s personal biography, as the book sort of zooms out from this very personal story of Hosea and his faithless wife to the national story of the faithful God revealed in scripture, and His dealings with the people of Israel. We could say that Hosea’s own life and pictured in chapters 1-3, are a living illustration of the truths that are contained in Hosea 4-14. The fact that God loves Israel, and that God is faithful to Israel. And that God is in this marriage-covenant relationship with His bride, His wife, Israel, is something that Hosea is summoned to live out himself in a very personal and very tragic way.

I mean, if a spouse is unfaithful to his or her husband, there’s a term for it, right? Adultery. And in a similar way, the prophets would use that same terminology, adultery, to describe the unfaithfulness of Israel to their God. They were committing spiritual adultery. And Hosea, by the way, wasn’t the first prophet, nor would he be the last, to speak about this concept of spiritual adultery. This is not a new or unique figure or illustration for Hosea. We see it also in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. But what is unique and what is new to Hosea, is that this prophet is asked by God to live out this metaphor, in his own relationship with his own wife.

What God tells Hosea to do in chapters 1-3, as we’ll see in some of the next few weeks, is this: He’s saying, God to Hosea, and I’m admittedly paraphrasing here, “Take a wife, just as I have taken Israel for my wife. Have children by that wife. But some of her children will be children that are a result of her own faithlessness. And unfaithfulness to you, Hosea. Just as the children of Israel have become unfaithful to Me, God. As my wife has become unfaithful to Me. Your wife will be unfaithful to you as My wife has been unfaithful to Me.” The marriage, in other words, between Hosea and his wife, is pedagogical. It teaches a lesson. It’s instructive and illustrative. It’s a visual aid. And it’s really the most tragic visual aid one could ever imagine. Because, think about it, when people would come up to Hosea, an actual prophet with an actual wife, and say, “Hey, Hosea, I heard your wife ran away from you.” He would be required, through tears, I’m imagining, to say, “Yeah, she did.” But you have to remember, he’s a prophet with a mission and a purpose. And then he would have said something like, “Yeah, she did leave me, which is exactly what you have done with your God. You’ve become unfaithful to your Heavenly Husband, through your idolatry and through your going after other gods. You’ve been unfaithful to the one who is the only God, the one who is your only Husband.” That must have been a very powerful visual aid. A very painful, personal visual aid. And having gone through that visual aid in chapters 1-3, with his wife’s own unfaithfulness at the forefront, Hosea begins preaching against Israel in chapters 4-14, going back to the illustration of his own marriage.

So, with all that as background, we get to our second heading for this evening’s sermon. We’ve already looked at “God and His People,” that’s all the contexts. Now we’re going to drill down a little bit more and look at “God and His Prophet.” Look at Hosea 1:1. We’re going to get through more than one verse tonight, by the way, unlike this morning. “The word of the Lord which came to Hosea the son of Beeri, during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.” Here in this verse, we’re given some important biographical information about Hosea.

First, we see that he’s a prophet, having received this “word” it says, “of the Lord.” And that’s a typical form of introduction given to and by one of God’s prophets, the “nabis,” the Hebrew term, during the Old Testament era.
I won’t take you there, but Joel 1:1… I’m going to read some of these similar introductory lines from other prophets. Joel 1:1, “The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.” Jonah 1:1, “The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai.” Micah 1:1, “The word of the Lord which came to Micah of Moresheth.” Zephaniah 1:1, “The word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah.” Zechariah 1:1, “The word of the Lord came to Zechariah the prophet, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo.”

So, through this language, this word-of-the-Lord language, we see that Hosea was divinely called to his prophetic task. He wasn’t a self-appointed mouthpiece for God. Instead, he was a divinely called prophet of God. And he received, it says here, this direct word of the Lord. This was an audible word from the Lord which came to Hosea.

Now, a little side trail, if you’ll indulge me. Note how the prophets in these days never had any questions, at least the ones I’ve just read off to you, about the authority and the inerrancy and the sufficiency of the word they had received. You don’t see Hosea debating the question. They’re not holding councils and conventions like we do in our day, when we have the word of the Lord in written form. This matter wasn’t up for debate back then. They knew that the word of the Lord that they had received, was in fact, the word of the Lord. They knew that the Lord who had given them His word was, in fact, God. Was in fact sovereign. And was to be obeyed. And I think the application for us on that one here today, is knowing that as 2 Peter 1:19 says, that we hold in our hands “the prophetic word made more sure”, we have much to learn from this prophetic example, in terms of this heart of obedience and submission from a prophet of old, like Hosea.

So, this word of the Lord comes to Hosea. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we need to ask, who was Hosea? Well, the text tells us. He was the son of Beeri. Now, the text doesn’t really shed too much light on this question, because we don’t really know who this Beeri is. He’s really unknown to history. We know from Genesis 26:34 that Esau’s father-in-law had the same name. But because of the number of years that had passed, this clearly was a different person in view here.

Now, we know that Hosea’s name meant salvation. Which makes sense, because as I alluded to earlier, a restoration and reconciliation and forgiveness is seemingly always on the horizon of this book. His name was actually Hoshea, which would have been the shortened form of Jehoshua, which means “the Lord is salvation” or “the Lord is my salvation.” The same Hebrew name Joshua from which the Greek name Jesus derived. The fact that his name would have been Hoshea, the Lord is salvation, would likely be a reflection of his father’s faith. He was ambitious about what the Lord would accomplish through his son.

Aside from the meaning of his name and his father’s name, we know very little else about Hosea’s life, other than what is recorded in this book. Some have suggested that he was a priest, because there are language references in the book to priestly items. We’ll get into those later. Some have suggested he was a baker, because in Hosea 7 there’s an extended metaphor laid out, that some would say only a baker would know the terminology. Others have suggested he was a farmer, because he uses various agricultural metaphors. None of those were conclusive. The best we can say, is what the text says, which is that Hosea received a word from the Lord And prophetically proclaimed that word to the people around him.

Which leads to another question. Who were the people around Hosea? To whom did he minister? Where did he minister? Well, Hosea was a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, that we laid out earlier. But Hosea was not merely sent to the Northern Kingdom to prophesy. He appears to have been a native of the Northern Kingdom and then prophesied in his native territory. Now, there are several pieces of evidence that support that conclusion, that he was a northerner. For one, he refers to the king of Israel in Hosea 7:5, as “our king”. Second, he uses the term, Ephraim, regularly. In fact, he uses that term 37 times, in this book, to describe his people. And Ephraim was a common northern vernacular term. Further, throughout this book, he shows familiarity with the history of the north. The circumstances of the north, even the topography of the north, which would suggest that he was actually, not only a prophet to the north, but a prophet from the north.

Now, when did Hosea serve? I’ve already mentioned that he served in this role as prophet in the mid-8th century B.C. somewhere in the 750 range. And that’s buttressed, by the way, from what we see here in Hosea 1:1. It says that Hosea ministered “during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah”, those are all the southern kings, kings of Judah, “and during the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.” Now, note that this isn’t saying that Hosea prophesied through the entirety of each of those kings’ reigns. If that were the case, he would have been a prophet for over 100 years which likely didn’t happen. Rather what we’re doing here is we’re looking at how these reigns interlocked. And we’re understanding that Hosea’s prophetic ministry would have somehow overlapped over all those kings’ reigns, not sequentially, but rather simultaneously. And when we put the years of the reigns of these kings on a sequential timeline, what we see, is that Hosea would have prophesied to the north from sometime around 755 B.C. to around 710 B.C. Meaning he prophesied in the final days before Israel was defeated and taken captive into Assyria which was in 722 B.C. This also means that he would have been a contemporary to the prophets to the south, Isaiah and Micah.

Well, we should also spend some time discussing what was happening in the Northern Kingdom. I’ve alluded to it briefly, but what was happening in the Northern Kingdom during this time, well, during Jeroboam’s reign in the north. Jeroboam that is referenced here, by the way, is Jeroboam II, not Solomon’s son. Like Uzziah’s reign in the south, this was considered to be the second golden age of Israel. The first golden age would have taken place during the unified monarchy of David and Solomon. But things were taking a turn for the better, at least economically and at least militarily during this reign of Jeroboam. There was increased prosperity and increased peace. But it also led to increased faithlessness in God’s people. They had become complacent. They had become self-indulgent. And ultimately, in terms of faith, they had become apostate. All they could see, and all that they wanted, was the evident blessing that was right there in from of their face. The economic tranquility. The economic provision. The fact that there were no wars happening right then and there. The wars were on the horizon.

And that really is, when you think about it, a problem for us. Think about it. That’s still the problem for man. You know, we can have the full pantry. We can have the well-paying jobs. We can have the title. We can have the vacation home. We can have the well-dressed, compliant children. We can have the national championships. But if our heart is not in alignment with God, it ultimately doesn’t matter. Because it will all eventually wilt and decay. And decay in the Northern Kingdom, that’s exactly what happened. Notwithstanding the oracles of judgment and doom that we’re going to see Hosea proclaim, on unrepentant Israel. They ultimately did not repent. And as I’ve already mentioned, God would then use a foreign invader, Assyria, to bring about His judgment on this apostate nation right around the year 722 B.C. But remember, that’s not without God first showing them grace by sending them countless prophets. Prophet after prophet, like Hosea, to warn them of the judgment that was coming. They did not repent.

Alright, so the word of the Lord comes to Hosea, and it is a strange word, that we see here in verse 2, “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea.” And this is, by the way, our third heading, “God and His Message.” The last one was “God and His Prophet,” now its “God and His Message.”
Verse 2, “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord’.”
Did you hear a common word there in that sentence? Coming up over and over? It’s the word “harlotry”. We see it three times in the English. It’s actually appearing four times in the Hebrew. Which means this is a point of great emphasis. He says go and take a harlot. The Jerusalem bible, which is very faithful to the lucidity and the brevity of the Hebrew text, says it this way: “Go, marry a whore, and get children with a whore, for the country itself has become nothing but a whore by abandoning Yahweh.”

Now, a lot of people have a problem with that. They’ll ask why would a holy God ask a holy prophet to marry an unholy woman, namely a harlot? Why would God ask Hosea to link up with a prostitute? To join up, as the Jerusalem bible translation says, with a whore. It makes no sense to some. It ruffles the moral sentiments of others. And so what they’ll try to do is explain the plain meaning of the text away. Some will try to allegorize. And they’ll say that, you know the marital scenes of Hosea 1-3, including verse 2 here, should be taken to be allegory. It’s a picture, it didn’t actually happen. But there’s nothing in the text, according to the very simple prose in which it’s written, that should reasonably cause anyone to question the literal occurrence of these events. Further, there is no record, that I’m aware of, of a prophet ever making himself the subject of an allegory or a parable like this. Last, even if this was legitimate to allegorize here, it doesn’t solve the moral problem. Because even if it’s an allegory, it’s still an allegory of a prophet marrying a prostitute. And from a moral standpoint, whether it’s allegorical or literal, wouldn’t really make a difference. So, some have tried to allegorize.

Others have tried to soften the blow of what’s being said here by suggesting that Hosea married a cult temple prostitute. That is, one of those who were engaging in intercourse as a part of the worship of the false gods of the day. In other words, according to this view, this woman wasn’t turning tricks for money. But instead, was engaging in those type of acts as acts of worship, even if it was false worship. That still doesn’t solve the moral problem though. And I think even more significantly, Hosea has in his book a different section, Hosea 4:14, where he uses a Hebrew term for cult prostitute. So, if he wanted to use that term here in Hosea 1, he could have. But he didn’t.

Still others will say that Hosea married a pure woman who later became adulterous. They call that proleptic language. And under this view, what’s actually happening when it says, “Take to yourself a wife of harlotry”, he’s actually saying, “Hosea, take to yourself a wife who will eventually become a harlot.” Again, if one is committed to the perspicuity of scripture, and the clarity of divine revelation, and a normal, consistent, literal hermeneutic, you’ll end up with the very conclusion we’re reaching here tonight. That based on the plain and ordinary meaning of the text, namely the Hebrew text, Hosea took a woman who was already a harlot to be his wife.

Hosea was commanded here by God, to go down to the red-light district. To pick out a harlot and to marry her. Not one who was beautiful. Not one who was worthy. Not one who was noble. But rather, one who was unclean. One who was filthy. Not only that, but as we see through the rest of the book of Hosea and the historical books it parallels, Gomer, the wife, being an actual prostitute, more closely pictures and parallels the spiritual harlotry that Israel was actively engaged in. The people of Israel had abandoned following the Lord. They had apostatized. They were committing acts of infidelity and spiritual adultery. They were engaging in acts of spiritual whoredom. So it was right, and it was fitting, as a teaching tool, and as an illustration, to have Hosea marry an actual harlot. Not one who would later become a harlot, but an actual harlot. Remembering the purpose of this book is to show how unsavory and hopeless and faithless this people is, Israel. And how good and gracious and faithful God is. And that’s most clearly drawn out by the literal interpretation of the text.

I’m going to cut it right there tonight. I’m going to get to my fourth point, to start next week’s sermon. I want to be respectful of the children’s workers and everybody who’s over there serving and the kids. I have so much more material that I don’t want to cut it short tonight. I want to actually just tease it for next week. Hey, we’re going to be in Hosea for a long time, right? Doesn’t really matter if we get to verse 3 tonight or we do it next week. Maybe the Lord will come this week, and we’ll just ask Him about it post rapture. But anyway, why don’t we go ahead and thank the Lord for what He has laid out for us in His word. Thank the Lord for this gathering today. This privilege to be worshiping with God’s people. And give Him thanks and praise for all He’s doing in our midst.

Let’s pray. God, we give You thanks this evening for yet another wonderful day of worship. We thank You for Your word, the truth it contains. It’s perfection, its clarity, its consistency, it’s sufficiency. We thank You for the book of Hosea. Its staggering pictures and its clarity and its conviction. A conviction I’m sure it will bring on each of us, as we sit under it, as we learn from it, as we grow through it. Help us to remember, as we’re going through this study, that books like Hosea, books in the Old Testament, even books like James, that we studied this morning, which have a Jewish context, they do have their unique placement in the canon. And a unique historical setting. But help us to walk away from this study, not only coming away bookish and learned, but to come away from it, extracting the eternal principles and the eternal truths that You’ve given us in books like Hosea. So that we can live faithfully as followers of Christ in this generation. We know that Hosea was living in a different time, under different rules, so to speak, of how people interacted with You. And we live under the grace of Christ. So, God, help us to take the eternal truths of even things like Your holiness and our tendency towards spiritual adultery. Help us to be on guard for those tendencies. And help us to run to the cross continually for the grace that we need to live holy and upright lives in Christ Jesus. We give You thanks and praise for this day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.